February 2011

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FUNDED Articles

Despite the persistently slow economy and ongoing budget cuts at every level, the U.S. Federal Government awarded nearly $600 billion in grants in 2011, which represents a 20% increase over the approximately $500 billion in grants awarded in 2009. On average, only about three to five percent of grant proposals submitted to the federal government are awarded funding. With more budget cuts on the horizon, the already tough competition for federal grant dollars is poised to become even more fierce. That means that now more than ever, only the 'best of the best' proposals will get funded. The loss of just a single scoring point can make the difference between success and failure. I regularly work as a peer reviewer for a number of federal funding agencies so I see firsthand what sets winning grant proposals apart from the others. I would like to share with you several common pitfalls that I frequently run across that ruin an otherwise solid proposal's chances of getting funded.

Many people submit their grant application and anticipate the end of the process: notification from the funder on whether funding is approved. Of course, those who win awards understand that the notice is not the end, but a transition to a new phase in post award administration and project deployment. Unfortunately, many who are denied funding simply accept the fate of their application as the end of the road. Being notified that an application has been denied funding may be a depressing setback, but is should never be viewed as the end of the grantseeking process. Some of the most successful organizations at pulling down grants don’t win every time they submit an application. Successful organizations are denied funding and ask themselves: How do we pick up the pieces and move forward?

Anyone who's been involved with the grants process knows its one thing to find the right grant and another thing to actually submit an application. Once you go through the trials and tribulations of putting the application together, you have may have looked over the application hundreds of times, or you may not have had much time to look it over at all. In this economic state, organizations are downsizing and people are being asked to take on more and more tasks. This can hurt the quality of an application when the submitter doesn't have enough time to properly proofread the application before it is time to submit.

Grant funding, like any other competition, inevitably results in winners and losers - and unfortunately, the latter tend to outnumber the former. Take for instance, the Investing in Innovation program available from the U.S. Department of Education. This year's competition brought out over 500 applicants for just under $150 million in total funding. It is likely fewer than 30 of these applications will receive funding - making it just as unlikely to receive grant funding as it is to get into Harvard.

The USDA's Distance Learning and Telemedicine (or DLT) program is one of the most popular annual federal grant programs. Highly competitive, the DLT program makes awards ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 for organizations that provide education or healthcare telecommunications services to rural populations. DLT also has one of the more complex application packages, and requires applicants to provide population tables, maps, and poverty rates for each proposed service area (end-users), as well as hub sites from which services will be delivered.

As many organizations and agencies can attest, nothing quite compares to the disappointment of an unfunded grant application, particularly one that an organization has put its full weight behind with planning, implementation, and drive. It's tempting to take that application, throw it in the trash, and move on. However, successful, tenacious grantseeking often involves taking those applications that were not successful and learning from them.